November 13, 2025 • 33 mins
From translating medical jargon into human language to using AI to keep healthcare human—conversations with two founders solving opposite sides of the same problem live from HLTH 2025.
Aaron Patzer, CEO of Vital.io, is the founder of Mint.com and former head of product at Intuit. Seven years ago, he started Vital with his brother-in-law Dr. Justin Schrager to guide 7 million patients through urgent care, emergency room, and hospital journeys by translating medical language into terms patients actually understand. His "doctor-to-patient translator" converts medical jargon like "cerebral infarction of the left hemisphere" into "stroke" and transforms lab results into human terms based on each patient's reading level, language, and education.
Growing to 15 million expected by end of 2026, Vital meets people exactly where they are—available in Spanish, Armenian, Somali, and Haitian Creole—with 80% adoption at children's hospitals and 65% average use in emergency departments.
Michael Oleksiw, founder of Pleio, spent a decade in fashion and tech before his wife's pancreatic cancer diagnosis at age 33 redirected his mission to healthcare. Pleio uses AI not to replace humans, but to inform them—analyzing patient conversations retrospectively to identify emotional peaks and valleys, fear, stigma, and loneliness that prevent medication adherence.
With humans always in the loop, Pleio's approach focuses on behavioral change triggers and removing barriers that get in the way of patients actually following through with their care. His "tech glow up" is about finding where technology crosses with humanity, keeping the person at the center.
Highlights from Aaron Patzer at Vital.io:
- Founded Mint.com (25M users), sold for $175M; former head of product for Intuit; now growing Vital to guide 7 million patients through hospital experiences
- Built a "doctor-to-patient translator" that adapts medical language to each patient's reading level, education, and language preference in Spanish, Armenian, Somali, Haitian Creole and more
- Achieved 65% average use in emergency departments, 80% use at children's hospitals, and expects 15M patients by end of 2026—about 10% of all US hospital visits
Highlights from Michael Oleksiw at Pleio:
- Wife's pancreatic cancer diagnosis at 33 (3% five-year survival rate at the time) inspired shift from fashion innovation to healthcare; she's thriving 18 years later
- Uses AI retrospectively to analyze patient conversations, identifying emotional barriers like fear, stigma, and loneliness that prevent medication adherence—always with humans in the loop
- Building behavioral models to empower healthcare professionals to work at the clinical level they thrive on, removing the burden of translating complex information while patients stay centered and supported
The result: healthcare communication doesn't just need better tech—it needs tech that remembers why it exists—to kee
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aaron Patzer (00:00):
It was real.
(00:00):
And I was so nervous.
I like fat fingered.
And I didn't get one out of thethree accounts, even though I'd
practiced it like 80 times andwe came away and we were voted
both by the judges and by thepeople top startup, and I was
like, sh*t, I was in front of2000 people.
I literally, I practiced 80times.
I was so nervous.
And now I feel, like I finally,I got that confidence as a human
(00:23):
to actually speak your truth andto be like, you know what?
I know.
This field and forget about yourfinancial outcomes.
Just like to be confident inyourself as an engineer who's
used to being introverted likethat is worth more than any
exit.
'cause it opens up everything inyour life, personal and
professional, and the way youview yourself, which is probably
(00:45):
more important than all of it
Nathan C (00:47):
1, 2, 3.
Yes.
Hello and welcome to the HLTHTech Glow Up, live from Health
2025.
Very special, guest.
Today I get to talk with AaronPatzer, CEO of Vital.
Aaron, it's so great to meet youand talk with you about what
(01:07):
you're doing.
Thanks for joining me on theHLTH Tech Glow Up.
Thanks for having me, Nathan.
Amazing.
So for those who might begetting to know you for the
first time, can you introduceyourself and the work that
you're doing at Vital?
Aaron Patzer (01:25):
Sure.
So I'm an engineer by trade.
I'm a nerd by training.
I have 10 patents in algorithms.
Math nerd.
and I'm probably still to thisday, best known as being the
founder and CEO of mint.com.
It was the largest personalfinance tool in the US and
Canada.
Got up to 25 million people, andthen I was the head of product
(01:46):
for Intuit.
So if you've used TurboTax orQuickBooks or Quicken or Mint,
I've had a hand in thatsoftware.
If you love it, great.
If you hate it.
Okay.
you can spam me on all thesocial platforms.
It's fine.
and about seven years ago, Istarted Vital with my
brother-in-law, Dr.
Justin Schrager and Vitalguides, 7 million patients
(02:08):
through urgent care, emergencyroom and hospital journeys,
because communication in healthcare is broken.
No one knows what they'resupposed to do next.
doctors speak a completelydifferent language.
They'd be like, Nathan, I'msorry, your mother has had a
cerebral infarction of the lefthemisphere.
And you'd be like, what?
(02:29):
She had a stroke or you brokeyour lateral and your medial
malleolus and you're like, saywhat again?
this software would translatethat into, you have two broken
bones in your foot.
So instead of lab results thatare like, Hey, your BUN is 46
micrograms per deciliter, andyou're like, what's a deciliter
and what's BUN?
Our software translates thatinto human terms, like your
(02:53):
kidneys appear to be straight.
It might be because of your newmedication, like a very human
description, and then what doyou do afterwards?
'cause nobody knows.
You can go to the hospital orthe emergency room, you fall
down, you have 45 stitches.
Nobody even calls you the nextday to be like, how are you
doing?
Have you burst any stitches?
Did you get the medications thatyou were supposed to?
(03:13):
How rude is that?
Yeah, it's terrible.
You wouldn't do that to afriend.
No.
That's not a friendly behavior.
And we do this in healthcare allthe time.
fixing healthcare is what wewant to do at Vital.
Nathan C (03:26):
I'm having my brain got so excited about this idea
of a clinical translator.
Yes.
For like real people.
Aaron Patzer (03:34):
We call it our doctor to patient translator.
Nathan C (03:36):
I love this.
So the doctor to patienttranslator, it seems like you're
working to put like sandwichgeneration children.
Out of a job.
Yeah, because I show up to myparents' appointments, I read
their labs, and often what myjob is Is like I, the very
recent I went to pick up myfather after a test.
Yeah.
(03:56):
And while I'm waiting for him towake up, I'm looking through the
documentation and I said.
It seems like they saw somethings.
They didn't seem to be tooconfused by them.
Yes.
And they took some things fortests.
Yeah, that was my job.
Yes.
And I'm not a medicalprofessional.
(04:17):
Yes.
I don't actually know if I'mright.
But like their next.
Best opportunity is maybe to gohome and Google the things that
they see a piece of paper you'regonna do.
You're gonna paste
Aaron Patzer (04:27):
This is how you can tell there's a problem.
so if you go into chat GPT andyou say, what should I do for my
lower back pain?
It should say, I'm not gonnaanswer that until I know how old
you are, whether you haveosteoporosis.
Instead, what it does is itsays, you should try these
exercises.
These are the three most commondrugs, right?
But it's so powerful otherwise.
(04:47):
So you have to figure out how doyou do the Chat GPT's of
experience, but how do you makeit safe?
And so what do you do aboutthings like.
Psych patients who might havethings in their medical records
where the doctor has written,Hey, they might be crazy.
Maybe you don't want to do that.
What do you do when somebody hasdementia?
What do you do if they have anew cancer finding or a loss of
(05:09):
pregnancy or something that'sdeeply sensitive?
How do you do that with humanlevel sensitivity?
But you can use AI to detectthese things and figure out,
okay, you know what?
We should delay this four hoursuntil a human gets a chance to
talk to you.
That's a good one for cancer orloss of pregnancy.
Maybe don't tell youimmediately.
we should know what youreducation level is, so we should
(05:31):
say, eighth grade leveleducation, or do we want to give
you the college levelinterpretation with a few
medical terms that are at leastmore precise?
Yeah.
Oh, that typically, literally wewill translate some things into,
you were on this medicationbecause your dialysis wasn't
going well and you lost threebig water bottles worth of
(05:54):
fluid, whereas to someone else.
We might say, you lost three anda half liters of fluid and
another person would be like,what's a liter or what's a
gallon?
Or what's, so some people justdon't have a good intuitive
sense, so you have to changeyour language based on who
you're communicating with.
Nathan C (06:11):
Uh, this is not, a lesson I was expecting to learn
from an engineer.
Aaron Patzer (06:16):
No.
I most of my friends areactually in the arts yep.
Nathan C (06:19):
I got a sense there's too many things that I wanna
dive into
Aaron Patzer (06:23):
step by step.
That's what, that's the onething I learned from
engineering.
Nathan C (06:28):
This idea of your communication style, like
personalization, personalizedcare.
Yes.
in this frame.
That personalized care doesn'tjust mean care that like matches
that patient.
Correct.
But Pat matches what thatpatient can manage, what that
patient understands or likeAbsolutely.
They can start to work with themon their level and like I come
(06:50):
from, Silicon Valley Deep Techbackground.
Yeah.
And the idea.
That you might wanna check.
The reading level on yourmarketing materials is one of
the easiest gotcha tests that Ido with every company that I
work with.
I just give them a report at thereading level of what they're
talking about, because when theytell me, oh, it's so easy.
(07:10):
It's so simple, everybody'sgonna obviously want to do it.
It's like you're talking techjargon at a 12th grade level.
And like your users read at afifth.
That's right.
Like you're just missing themcompletely
Aaron Patzer (07:21):
Literally the language.
So absolutely Vital is availablein Spanish.
Obviously Armenian, you wouldn'tsuspect that Somali.
Why Somali?
Because Allina Health is acustomer and a lot of Somalis
move to Minnesota of all places.
We had the app professionallytranslated into Haitian Creole.
'cause there's a big populationin Miami where we just launched
(07:42):
with a major health system.
The biggest out there.
This is why we have 7 millionpeople using this.
And I expect, I'm hoping end of2026, about 15 million.
That's about 10% of all thehospital visits in the US And
you have to meet people exactlywhere they are.
Yeah, so language reading level.
We also make sure that.
(08:02):
It's a web app.
You don't have to downloadanything.
Don't make people downloadthings.
You'll lose 70% of your usersthere.
This is a pet peeve of mine.
So like same MyChart is I askedmy customers, they're like, ha.
Epic says they can do what youcan do.
And I was like, okay, let's takea look at this.
And I was like, okay.
So you're gonna downloadMyChart, you're gonna create a
username and password with twocapital letters and an
(08:23):
exclamation point.
A nurse has to be involved toapprove it half the time you're
gonna pick your securityquestions, then you're going to.
And so we had a health systemwho was like 6% use in the
emergency department.
Our use is 65% on average.
Do you know at children'shospitals we get 80% use from
parents.
(08:43):
'cause parents really care abouttheir kids.
often.
Family sharing is one of themost important aspects of what
Vital does.
You can share it just like youwere sharing a social media
post, but securely and they cansee what's going on with your
visit.
What are you doing in thehospital today?
What tests are upcoming, andit's in their language as well.
Yeah, your pneumonia hasimproved and your temperature is
(09:06):
finally back to normal.
So that what you're doing foryour parents, we do.
For literally millions offamilies a year.
Amazing.
Nathan C (09:15):
Aaron, I could get geeky about Yeah.
Personalization.
Yeah.
Forever.
the last question that I'm gonnaask about it is you brought up
these really interesting, right?
This particular community haslike a strong Somali Yeah.
Need in community.
This community has a strongHaitian community.
(09:35):
As you're growing the platform,and there's gotta be this like
constant sort of learning.
Where do those insights fromthose communities for that need
for Haitian, does that come toyou from the platform side?
Is that coming from thecustomers?
Like how do you learn, right?
There's a million things thatyou don't know.
(09:55):
How do you learn those unknownunknowns?
What's your channel for, listento your customers.
So they'll tell you, we have alot of Haitian Creole speakers.
Software engineers do not liketo go into hospitals.
I do overnights in the emergencyroom.
I stay up late.
I assumed that there were gonnabe arterial blood spurts.
I asked my co-founder, I waslike, I like this shirt.
(10:16):
This is my good shirt.
Should I wear this shirt orshould I wear something else?
And he is I don't know what youthink you're getting yourself
into.
It's mostly people who like havebad head colds and nausea and
it's yeah, there's an occasionaltrauma.
They come in through theambulance.
You're not gonna be in those.
Just do the research, be in thehospitals.
We send our engineers.
Into hospitals.
We sent our engineers to,Children's Los Angeles to sit in
(10:37):
the waiting room and see whatit's like to be coughed on by
multiple children and be inthere for, an X hour wait.
And how do you keep peopleoccupied?
How do you keep them happy?
How do you prepare them to talkto the doctor and the nurse?
How do you meet them where theyare?
technical document and see howwell you recall So you have to
be literally interviewing.
Customers.
And then the last one isobviously this is the thing,
(10:59):
tech people are already good atall the analytics.
we look at heat maps, we do ABtesting, we do funnel
optimization.
We use all of those tools.
We look at rage clicks.
What did people think that theycould click on that they didn't?
Where do you see the tap.
Nothing's happening or it's nothappening fast enough.
If you're in the valley, I knowyou know how to do that, but
you're not doing number one andtwo, if you're in healthcare,
(11:21):
you know you're doing numbertwo, but you're not doing number
one and three.
You gotta do all of'em.
you're gonna sweeten me up withanswers like that for sure.
let's get out of the productmind.
Sure.
but go a little bit to originstory.
One of the things that Iabsolutely love to do on The
Tech Glow Up is talk with peoplewho have seen it and done it
right.
(11:41):
And that's had a notable successin startup innovation and
technology innovation.
Because the journey is almostnever just about the wins.
Yes.
And like the good idea is alwaysthe first and easiest part.
Correct.
and how I feel like we don'tgive enough airtime to, the hard
(12:04):
decisions, the key moments.
Really, the values that go intobeing a founder that gives you
the grit and persistence to takethat good idea until its time
hits.
Yeah.
And so I'm curious, like what'sthe engineer to entrepreneur
pipeline?
Like what, what was the thingstarted your journey and then
(12:29):
what's kept you focused andwanting to build and continue to
solve problems in such a fraughtand chaotic kind of space.
Aaron Patzer (12:39):
Alright, let's tackle this one by one.
So I did start out as anengineer.
And as an engineer I was notnecessarily the best at
communication.
The most important professionalsix minutes of my career and
probably personal life were, wewon the very first Tech crunch
event back in 2007.
We launched Tech Crunch 40, andI got on stage, and this was the
(13:02):
time when people did PowerPointpresentations primarily.
And I got on stage and I did alive demo with my own finances.
I typed my bank username andpassword on stage, pulling all
my, like everything.
I'm talking like In and OutBurger, yeah, like whatever
credit card transactionshappening.
It was real.
And I was so nervous.
I like fat fingered.
(13:22):
And I didn't get one out of thethree accounts, even though I'd
practiced it like 80 times andwe came away and we were voted
both by the judges and by thepeople top startup, and I was
like, sh*t, I was in front of2000 people.
I literally, I practiced 80times.
I was so nervous.
And now I feel, like I finally,I got that confidence as a human
(13:43):
to actually speak your truth andto be like, you know what?
I know.
This field and forget about yourfinancial outcomes.
Just like to be confident inyourself as an engineer who's
used to being introverted likethat is worth more than any
exit.
'cause it opens up everything inyour life, personal and
professional, and the way youview yourself, which is probably
(14:05):
more important than all of it
Nathan C (14:07):
because if you're only measuring yourself through the
wind and the professionals yes.
Aaron Patzer (14:12):
I was in Silicon Valley back in a time where, and
it's smaller than you think,right?
So I had this, I thought it wasa big win.
Mint was sold for$175 millionand so That's great.
And I did well.
I was the only founder.
But everybody else around me wasstill chasing that high score
and that external validation,right?
(14:32):
I played Guitar Hero withZuckerberg.
I used to go camping everysummer with Elon and there are
these people who don't know whento quit and don't realize that
it's hurting every other aspectof their life, and they have
outsized performance in certainareas.
And they're underdevelopedelsewhere.
And so my big advocacy isabsolutely go for the dollars,
(14:52):
be successful, be a roundedperson, 44, I can still do 20
pull-ups.
Pay attention to your physicalfitness as much as anything
else.
And so I wanted to get back inthis, for my, this is my
creative field, right?
My best guy friend is a directorand a writer.
My best female friend, Moni, sheis a fashion designer, My
partner Michelle, she is amusician, PIANIKA on Spotify,
(15:16):
very popular.
Look at all the shout outs.
I never do this in the podcast,but I feel very comfortable and,
This is my creative outlet, thisis what I do for fun.
This is like business andproduct design and designing the
great experiences, and there'sso many things that are broken
in.
Healthcare communication is sobroken in healthcare.
The tech is fun, but it's likeit serves this end design goal
(15:39):
of one day.
I wanna be able to guide ahundred million people through
hospital experiences, throughsurgeries, through recovering
from diseases.
Why not a billion?
This should be an experiencethat every single human has so
that you have, I'm lucky enoughto have a brother-in-law who's a
doctor, and I can ask him, whatdoes this lab result mean?
(16:01):
Why doesn't everybody have thatexperience?
And that's the glow up that Iwanna see for Vital.
That's the glow up I wanna seefor.
The industry to communicateproperly to patients.
Healthcare is misbranded.
It's really sick care.
It is not caring about yourhealth, it's not caring about
the patient.
I've sat in these C-Suitemeetings.
(16:22):
Here's how we're gonna use AIfor providers.
Here's how we're gonna use AIfor billing.
I went for one hour, a fullhour, and I raised my hand and I
said, you have not talked aboutimproving the patient or
improving health.
and it was shocking how littlethey thought about the patients,
and that is the ethos of Vitalpatient first.
(16:43):
The experience matters as muchas the medicine.
How you feel about yourexperience, how someone treated
you, how they communicated withyou.
That's what matters.
Your average emergency room is2.3 stars.
If you wait at a Mexicanrestaurant with 2.3 stars, you
would a hundred percent get foodpoisoning and you're gonna treat
(17:03):
your like blown kidney and yourcancer to a place that has 2.3.
That is something we need tofix.
Nathan C (17:10):
Oh my goodness, Aaron, that's amazing.
That analogy just killed me.
you did such a good job attalking through, my questions
about glow ups for the industryas well as for Vital.
we just have a few more moments.
because the theme is Heroes andLegends.
You called out a lot of peoplewho have been influential in
(17:30):
your life.
But I'm curious, is there amentor or a hero that's impacted
your entrepreneurial or healthtech entrepreneurial journey?
Yeah.
I'm lucky enough to have a boardmember, Dr.
Bridget Duffy.
She was the first chiefexperience officer in the world
at Cleveland Clinic.
(17:51):
She helps, She's amazing.
She was then went on to foundstartups, at Vocera, she was the
chief medical officer that wasacquired.
She's been very successful.
She sits on my board and helpsthe team, not just me, but
everybody on the team.
She has a wealth of experienceclinically and otherwise, and
her goal is to fix patient, thepatient communication across
(18:11):
healthcare Honestly, I feel somuch more energized to have her
in my corner on my side.
Just a big thank you, Bridget.
If you ever see this.
Oh my goodness.
that was so sweet and sincere.
I've, I've so appreciated.
Me too.
the pace and just presence thatyou've brought here that you're
saying, I'm gonna think throughthis one by one, Will probably
(18:33):
help me in future podcasts.
Aaron, it's been a total delightto get to talk with you on the
tech, Vital.io.
Yes, former, founder of Mint,but now founder of Vital.
Yeah.
thank you so much for joining uson the HLTH Tech Glow Up.
Amazing.
Aaron Patzer (18:49):
Thanks for listening.
Nathan C (18:50):
We're gonna do one more thing we're gonna do Oh
yes.
In 1, 2, 3.
Perfect.
Great.
Love it.
Perfect.
so 1, 2, 3.
Hello and welcome to the HLTHTech Glow Up.
I'm Nathan c and today I'mtalking with Michael Oleksiw.
Lesi.
Yeah.
Ole of Pleio.
(19:12):
Michael, thank you so much forjoining me today.
Yeah, thanks.
Thank you for having me.
Fantastic.
Can you, just to get started,can you introduce yourself and
the work that you do at Pleio?
Michael Oleksiw (19:20):
Sure.
So Michael Oleksiw, I am the,token Canadian here at the
conference.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I am pretty much a techentrepreneur, corporate
entrepreneur who has meanderedthrough building bicycles,
working in the fashion industry,and naturally progressed into
medication adherence, obviously.
(19:42):
our focus at Plao, my work overthe last decade has really been
dedicated to bettering patientexperiences and.
Making people's lives betterwith the help of technology, but
with humans at the forefront.
Nathan C (19:55):
Amazing.
Michael, you described a lot ofthe keywords that get my
attention.
I'm also curious if you're aplant, because I love bicycles
and a number of the things thatyou're talking about.
can you dive in a little bit tothe specifics about how you are
able to deliver these things atPleio?
Michael Oleksiw (20:13):
Yeah.
So we're really, again, aboutusing technology to better human
journeys.
So with the human at theforefront, we know that humans
are great at connecting.
They're great at being peoplebecause we are people, and
technology is really good atmaking things efficient.
So we bring the two worldstogether, and I've used.
a lot of the buzzwords, but Ididn't use the big buzzword,
which was AI.
I had to look at ai, we use AIto make humans better at what
(20:38):
they do, but not to replacehumans.
Alright.
So that's gives you a goodsense.
So what are we where, theclassic sense tech enabled
services.
But our core purpose is to keephealthcare human.
Nathan C (20:49):
Yeah.
Amazing.
there's been a lot of, I'veheard a lot of conversations
about AI at the show and one ofthe themes that I've really
noticed, and it seems like youmight be in this space, is.
A trust but verify version oftrust but verify, which is ai,
but human assisted.
(21:10):
is there a human checkpoint orhow does, AI better the humans?
are there checkpoints?
How.
Who gets to control truth inthese scenario?
Michael Oleksiw (21:18):
Yeah, so the interesting thing is our use of
AI is quite different than mostof what we see here, because
again, we're using it not toreplace the human, but to inform
the human.
So as we speak to patients, wewanna remind them that they're
people.
But AI allows us to listen atscale and listen more
intelligently to look at thoseemotional peaks and valleys and
determine what the best triggersare and how to better connect
(21:41):
with humans.
So our AI looks at conversationsretrospectively.
We're not letting AI loose outin the wild.
Sure.
As we look at understanding theconversations better, we always
have a human in the loop thatwill look at what the AI is
producing and say, does thismake sense?
Does this correlate with what weknow and what we believe?
(22:02):
So we're a little bit differentin that respect.
We're not using it to betransactional.
We're using it to be,informative and to drive
efficiencies.
Nathan C (22:11):
Are there, the metric of how somebody's feeling,
whether or not they're elevated,how, like that tone element that
you described Yep.
is so frequently what, getsglossed over or missed?
In healthcare interactions whenwe're like focused on our
screens or like in a task kindof mindset, like that time to
(22:32):
sit and listen and be like, whyis Mary telling me about her,
pool at the farm, back home?
how did you discover, like howis sentiment?
It feels like one of the harderparts of ai.
I'm curious, can you talk moreabout how you approach sentiment
and Yeah.
Michael Oleksiw (22:47):
it is definitely one of the more
complicated components.
it is also one of the moreestablished components where
tone and sentiment analysis isone of the more set sciences.
But we, what we do is we buildthese barrier blueprints.
We look at fear, stigma,loneliness, et cetera.
And then we use the AI to listento word phrases.
Nathan C (23:07):
Yep.
Michael Oleksiw (23:07):
Essentially, and determine.
What is, what, what is thepatient trying to tell us?
Yeah.
When they're talking about,their farm or they're expressing
something about their life thatseems extraneous to the patient
journey, they may be telling usI'm lonely.
They may be telling us I'mafraid.
So these are the types of cuesthat we look for.
And, where we're particularlystrong is picking up on those
(23:28):
cues, even just as humans,because we they're the humans go
in and form.
But our awkward giggles, ourawkward pauses.
so much is focused on thehealthcare professionals.
they're busy.
Our community pharmacy, acrossthe US is struggling.
They're under so much pressures.
So one of the things that we do,by being a good neighbor to
patients, we allow thepharmacies and the healthcare
(23:51):
professionals to work to top oflicense.
Work at the clinical level thatthey want.
They don't lack empathy.
That's what they thrive on, butthey have a job to do beyond
that.
So we remove that burden.
Nathan C (24:03):
Doctors don't have to be translators.
Doctors can think like doctors.
Patients can ask questions likepatients, and everybody gets the
info that they need.
Michael Oleksiw (24:11):
Judgment free zone.
Nathan C (24:13):
And that's so much like what personalized care is
about is no, just answer myquestion.
So I love it.
my, Michael, this is fantastic.
Thank you.
Great.
for diving in with me.
Let's look at the show a littlebit and take it way back.
High level sort of industryside.
Yep.
The Tech Glow Up, likes to talkabout, this notable RS
(24:33):
transformations.
So what are you looking to seechange and be elevated within
the healthcare industry in thenext six months or a year?
Michael Oleksiw (24:42):
Yeah.
Things are progressing sorapidly that today's glow up is
not tomorrow's glow up.
Very true.
We can't ignore ai.
particularly what we seehappening in health in the
pharma space, we have, direct topatient.
we basically probably are gonnasee a lowering of the cost of
drugs.
drugs that are wonder drugs.
Like GLP1 are going to becomecommodity drugs, although they
(25:04):
carry, a specialty price.
So the question is, how can weuse technology to support those
patients?
Who are, there'll be morepatients on drugs at a lower
cost, but yet they still requirethat support.
So are we gonna be compromisingsupport because the price came
down?
So technology, from a technologystandpoint, more users isn't
always
Nathan C (25:22):
better.
Michael Oleksiw (25:23):
Correct.
So yeah, there's definitely agreat interest around, a lot of
the AI and a lot of theefficiencies that can come.
But my particular interest is,from a tech loup perspective,
really watching that pendulumshift heavily towards digital,
heavily towards tech.
And, are we bypassing the humanin the process?
So my tech loup is reallyfocused on finding where tech
(25:44):
crosses with the human, keepsthe person behind the patient at
the center of it all.
We're focused on the person, thebehavior, not the transaction.
So that's our tech blow upspace.
Nathan C (25:55):
I love this.
it's a very unique perspectiveto be bringing, to this space.
Do you use design thinking and alot of, the principles and
approach to problem solving thatyou described, cue in a lot of
my design thinking radar?
Is that part of how you buildproducts and services?
Yeah.
(26:16):
absolutely.
Michael Oleksiw (26:16):
We are like the perfect, right brain left brain
company.
Where we are all, artists andscientists at the exact same
time.
because human behavior iscomplex medication adherence is
complex.
So it will be, a question of artand science that come into
Pleio.
And what is design?
it's using science to make artreproducible.
Nathan C (26:36):
Okay.
Oh, I love it.
I, there was like, the wordscovered out are sending a
signal.
very personalized to myinterests.
I love it.
So let's get back to, the glowups.
We have the industry level glowup Pleio as a CEO.
You've gotta have some boldgoals for the next six months or
(26:56):
a year.
what are you gonna betransforming in your own work?
Michael Oleksiw (26:59):
Yep.
so we're again, really focusedon supercharging, the human,
continuing to build the humaninteraction at scale,
understanding that it's veryeasy to bypass.
Mentioned it earlier.
Very easy to bypass the human.
So we're spending a lot of timeusing our AI to further empower.
(27:20):
those human interactions.
So it goes to something simpleas retrospectively,
understanding thoseconversations.
We spoke about the emotionalpeaks and valleys and those
human connections, but it'll getto a level of, prompting human
interactions and interleaving,human and digital understanding.
Bill that human behavioralchange, trigger it, and then
extend it and maintain it.
(27:41):
With a digital, with some levelof digital buy-in.
So we're spending a lot of timein that particular behavioral
space, really understanding, alot really around barrier
blueprint.
So we call them the underminers.
Oh, so we're looking at, yeah webuilt, they're superhero sat.
They don't sound likesuperheroes.
They sound like counter heroes.
You look at mistrust, you lookat worry.
(28:01):
You look at depression, theseare all the things that actually
get in the way of patients usingthese great technologies.
So we're using technology toenable techno humans to enable
technology.
Nathan C (28:11):
I love it, but it keeps us glowing.
It keeps us glowing.
Michael, the theme of the showat Health this year is Heroes
and Legends, and I've been usingit to talk to innovators.
about the heroes, mentors andlegends that inspired their
journey.
who's inspired you to take thisheroic effort?
Michael Oleksiw (28:30):
Yeah.
There, there are many along theway.
There are collections of heroes.
And then, one of the greatestheroes tends to be luck at
times.
So I've had, the folks that havegiven me a chance, but.
I think one of my greatestheroes, really is, a patient.
my wife, shortly after mydaughter was born, was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer.
at the time she was, 33,survival rates were at 3% at
five years.
(28:51):
18 years later, she's still withus.
at the time I was working in thefashion industry, innovating in
the fashion industry, being anasty enabler of a fa fast
fashion space, and then got tosee really how healthcare.
needs to be human.
Although I didn't know it at thetime.
I lived a patient journey.
An incredibly difficult patientjourney, and that was really my
(29:14):
glove to basically say, okay,you've always been enabling,
humans through technology,What's happening in this space?
Get back into healthcare.
So that was, it was just verypersonal.
and I think that's what makes itso real.
Nathan C (29:25):
most founders that I ask this question to have a
similarly, personal, justincredibly Close to home kind of
inspiration.
So really thank you for sharing.
Michael Oleksiw (29:39):
thanks.
And it becomes easier to shareover the years.
I would be breaking down intears if I was sharing this just
a few years ago.
Nathan C (29:45):
and also really speaks right that there are many voices
within that healthcare journey.
And while your wife was thepatient.
As a support, as family, as theperson who's not undergoing
chemo and other toxic drugs, youhave a role in this
communication chain and you're atranslator for the sentiment for
(30:09):
the whole chain that we'retalking about.
it's almost like you built toolsalso for your own role in the
journey.
Michael Oleksiw (30:16):
Yeah.
And that's where, intuitionbecame science and became
design.
Nathan C (30:20):
Yeah,
Michael Oleksiw (30:20):
We lived the journey and there's all this
knowledge and all these toolsand information that's being
thrown at you from thehealthcare community.
It's not that information that'sreally gonna help with the
journey, it's just knowing thatthere's someone that cares about
you, that facilitates thejourney and makes all of those
tools accessible.
So that's what we're reallystrive to reproduce in the work
(30:42):
that we do.
Although we didn't know it atfirst, we have several
behavioral models that havekicked in over time that explain
what we do.
We really started out doing itintuitively.
Nathan C (30:52):
That's cool.
And, usually on the glow up ifsomebody tells me, there's this
follow up about, were you alwaysable to trust that intuition?
Sometimes when you start with anidea, it feels like the only
idea How do you balance thatintuition and that curiosity
(31:14):
about maybe we don't have thewhole answer, you have to be
resolute on one hand, but youalso have to be open.
how do you balance that?
Michael Oleksiw (31:21):
and the funny thing is we only realize, our
intuition was right or wrong,often.
As an afterthought.
I like to think of it as likesubconscious intuition, where
we're actually doing somethingand not realizing it, and then
after the fact calling it in,intuition, I, and then you put a
label on it, and it's the way webacked into what we do at Pleio
right?
We were doing it, we wereconnecting with patients, and we
(31:44):
were hitting these emotionalbarriers and we realized wait a
minute.
there's a model for that.
And that, we realized.
These people seem lonely.
And then we realized, throughour work in the last year,
there's a loneliness epidemicthat's surfaced as a result of,
the paradox of, technology doomscrolling, social media.
Nathan C (32:01):
Michael, we have blown through most of the questions.
I'm offering the opportunity toshare a spicy, hot take.
Do you have one at HLTH thisyear?
Huh?
Michael Oleksiw (32:13):
I think a lot of folks were talking about,
mark Cuban's, talk.
And we were counting theF-bombs.
Same to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty spicy.
We can count F-bombs.
They were really good forapplause.
Yeah.
they drew the, they draw theapplause engagement.
I do think a little bit ofdisruptive talk, what we'd like
to see the changes to, versusjust to talk.
But, I did the fact that we weredrawing attention to this
problem because, we struggle toprovide support to patients and,
(32:36):
in our world it's always aboutcost.
Yeah, we would like to spice upthe human relative to the cost.
Nathan C (32:42):
I will take.
Yeah.
But we'd like to see theoutcomes mark as a spicy hot
ticket.
Yeah.
Michael Oleksiw (32:49):
Correct, correct.
Because it's, the money is,money's pretty powerful.
It's very easy
Nathan C (32:53):
to say from that position.
Michael Oleksiw (32:55):
And as I said early on, my concern is as we
drive down the cost of drugs.
Let's not lose track of thesupport because we can put the
treadmill into the home.
But if the motivation isn'tthere, it's a closed rack and we
don't want those drugs to sit inthe medicine cabinet.
If the doctor believes thatthey're important, the patient
needs to take them.
So we need to be sure that wemaintain that connectivity with
(33:17):
the patient, and that's wellbeyond just what we do.
Yes.
Nathan C (33:19):
Michael, it has been such a pleasure to learn about
Pleio and the really humanfocused work that you do, in
innovation and health techinnovation in general.
to have that much of a customerfocus in the work that you do is
very notable from this side.
Bravo.
Michael Oleksiw (33:39):
Great.
Thank you so much.
Look, we're surrounded withgreat people.
We talk to great people likeyourself, so that's, community
is cure, right?
So community is cure.
Nathan C (33:47):
Let's clap it out.
Michael Oleksiw (33:48):
There
Nathan C (33:49):
Great.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks.
No, it was a lot of fun.
It was real.
(00:00):
And I was so nervous.
I like fat fingered.
And I didn't get one out of thethree accounts, even though I'd
practiced it like 80 times andwe came away and we were voted
both by the judges and by thepeople top startup, and I was
like, sh*t, I was in front of2000 people.
I literally, I practiced 80times.
I was so nervous.
And now I feel, like I finally,I got that confidence as a human
(00:23):
to actually speak your truth andto be like, you know what?
I know.
This field and forget about yourfinancial outcomes.
Just like to be confident inyourself as an engineer who's
used to being introverted likethat is worth more than any
exit.
'cause it opens up everything inyour life, personal and
professional, and the way youview yourself, which is probably
(00:45):
more important than all of it
Nathan C (00:47):
1, 2, 3.
Yes.
Hello and welcome to the HLTHTech Glow Up, live from Health
2025.
Very special, guest.
Today I get to talk with AaronPatzer, CEO of Vital.
Aaron, it's so great to meet youand talk with you about what
(01:07):
you're doing.
Thanks for joining me on theHLTH Tech Glow Up.
Thanks for having me, Nathan.
Amazing.
So for those who might begetting to know you for the
first time, can you introduceyourself and the work that
you're doing at Vital?
Aaron Patzer (01:25):
Sure.
So I'm an engineer by trade.
I'm a nerd by training.
I have 10 patents in algorithms.
Math nerd.
and I'm probably still to thisday, best known as being the
founder and CEO of mint.com.
It was the largest personalfinance tool in the US and
Canada.
Got up to 25 million people, andthen I was the head of product
(01:46):
for Intuit.
So if you've used TurboTax orQuickBooks or Quicken or Mint,
I've had a hand in thatsoftware.
If you love it, great.
If you hate it.
Okay.
you can spam me on all thesocial platforms.
It's fine.
and about seven years ago, Istarted Vital with my
brother-in-law, Dr.
Justin Schrager and Vitalguides, 7 million patients
(02:08):
through urgent care, emergencyroom and hospital journeys,
because communication in healthcare is broken.
No one knows what they'resupposed to do next.
doctors speak a completelydifferent language.
They'd be like, Nathan, I'msorry, your mother has had a
cerebral infarction of the lefthemisphere.
And you'd be like, what?
(02:29):
She had a stroke or you brokeyour lateral and your medial
malleolus and you're like, saywhat again?
this software would translatethat into, you have two broken
bones in your foot.
So instead of lab results thatare like, Hey, your BUN is 46
micrograms per deciliter, andyou're like, what's a deciliter
and what's BUN?
Our software translates thatinto human terms, like your
(02:53):
kidneys appear to be straight.
It might be because of your newmedication, like a very human
description, and then what doyou do afterwards?
'cause nobody knows.
You can go to the hospital orthe emergency room, you fall
down, you have 45 stitches.
Nobody even calls you the nextday to be like, how are you
doing?
Have you burst any stitches?
Did you get the medications thatyou were supposed to?
(03:13):
How rude is that?
Yeah, it's terrible.
You wouldn't do that to afriend.
No.
That's not a friendly behavior.
And we do this in healthcare allthe time.
fixing healthcare is what wewant to do at Vital.
Nathan C (03:26):
I'm having my brain got so excited about this idea
of a clinical translator.
Yes.
For like real people.
Aaron Patzer (03:34):
We call it our doctor to patient translator.
Nathan C (03:36):
I love this.
So the doctor to patienttranslator, it seems like you're
working to put like sandwichgeneration children.
Out of a job.
Yeah, because I show up to myparents' appointments, I read
their labs, and often what myjob is Is like I, the very
recent I went to pick up myfather after a test.
Yeah.
(03:56):
And while I'm waiting for him towake up, I'm looking through the
documentation and I said.
It seems like they saw somethings.
They didn't seem to be tooconfused by them.
Yes.
And they took some things fortests.
Yeah, that was my job.
Yes.
And I'm not a medicalprofessional.
(04:17):
Yes.
I don't actually know if I'mright.
But like their next.
Best opportunity is maybe to gohome and Google the things that
they see a piece of paper you'regonna do.
You're gonna paste
Aaron Patzer (04:27):
This is how you can tell there's a problem.
so if you go into chat GPT andyou say, what should I do for my
lower back pain?
It should say, I'm not gonnaanswer that until I know how old
you are, whether you haveosteoporosis.
Instead, what it does is itsays, you should try these
exercises.
These are the three most commondrugs, right?
But it's so powerful otherwise.
(04:47):
So you have to figure out how doyou do the Chat GPT's of
experience, but how do you makeit safe?
And so what do you do aboutthings like.
Psych patients who might havethings in their medical records
where the doctor has written,Hey, they might be crazy.
Maybe you don't want to do that.
What do you do when somebody hasdementia?
What do you do if they have anew cancer finding or a loss of
(05:09):
pregnancy or something that'sdeeply sensitive?
How do you do that with humanlevel sensitivity?
But you can use AI to detectthese things and figure out,
okay, you know what?
We should delay this four hoursuntil a human gets a chance to
talk to you.
That's a good one for cancer orloss of pregnancy.
Maybe don't tell youimmediately.
we should know what youreducation level is, so we should
(05:31):
say, eighth grade leveleducation, or do we want to give
you the college levelinterpretation with a few
medical terms that are at leastmore precise?
Yeah.
Oh, that typically, literally wewill translate some things into,
you were on this medicationbecause your dialysis wasn't
going well and you lost threebig water bottles worth of
(05:54):
fluid, whereas to someone else.
We might say, you lost three anda half liters of fluid and
another person would be like,what's a liter or what's a
gallon?
Or what's, so some people justdon't have a good intuitive
sense, so you have to changeyour language based on who
you're communicating with.
Nathan C (06:11):
Uh, this is not, a lesson I was expecting to learn
from an engineer.
Aaron Patzer (06:16):
No.
I most of my friends areactually in the arts yep.
Nathan C (06:19):
I got a sense there's too many things that I wanna
dive into
Aaron Patzer (06:23):
step by step.
That's what, that's the onething I learned from
engineering.
Nathan C (06:28):
This idea of your communication style, like
personalization, personalizedcare.
Yes.
in this frame.
That personalized care doesn'tjust mean care that like matches
that patient.
Correct.
But Pat matches what thatpatient can manage, what that
patient understands or likeAbsolutely.
They can start to work with themon their level and like I come
(06:50):
from, Silicon Valley Deep Techbackground.
Yeah.
And the idea.
That you might wanna check.
The reading level on yourmarketing materials is one of
the easiest gotcha tests that Ido with every company that I
work with.
I just give them a report at thereading level of what they're
talking about, because when theytell me, oh, it's so easy.
(07:10):
It's so simple, everybody'sgonna obviously want to do it.
It's like you're talking techjargon at a 12th grade level.
And like your users read at afifth.
That's right.
Like you're just missing themcompletely
Aaron Patzer (07:21):
Literally the language.
So absolutely Vital is availablein Spanish.
Obviously Armenian, you wouldn'tsuspect that Somali.
Why Somali?
Because Allina Health is acustomer and a lot of Somalis
move to Minnesota of all places.
We had the app professionallytranslated into Haitian Creole.
'cause there's a big populationin Miami where we just launched
(07:42):
with a major health system.
The biggest out there.
This is why we have 7 millionpeople using this.
And I expect, I'm hoping end of2026, about 15 million.
That's about 10% of all thehospital visits in the US And
you have to meet people exactlywhere they are.
Yeah, so language reading level.
We also make sure that.
(08:02):
It's a web app.
You don't have to downloadanything.
Don't make people downloadthings.
You'll lose 70% of your usersthere.
This is a pet peeve of mine.
So like same MyChart is I askedmy customers, they're like, ha.
Epic says they can do what youcan do.
And I was like, okay, let's takea look at this.
And I was like, okay.
So you're gonna downloadMyChart, you're gonna create a
username and password with twocapital letters and an
(08:23):
exclamation point.
A nurse has to be involved toapprove it half the time you're
gonna pick your securityquestions, then you're going to.
And so we had a health systemwho was like 6% use in the
emergency department.
Our use is 65% on average.
Do you know at children'shospitals we get 80% use from
parents.
(08:43):
'cause parents really care abouttheir kids.
often.
Family sharing is one of themost important aspects of what
Vital does.
You can share it just like youwere sharing a social media
post, but securely and they cansee what's going on with your
visit.
What are you doing in thehospital today?
What tests are upcoming, andit's in their language as well.
Yeah, your pneumonia hasimproved and your temperature is
(09:06):
finally back to normal.
So that what you're doing foryour parents, we do.
For literally millions offamilies a year.
Amazing.
Nathan C (09:15):
Aaron, I could get geeky about Yeah.
Personalization.
Yeah.
Forever.
the last question that I'm gonnaask about it is you brought up
these really interesting, right?
This particular community haslike a strong Somali Yeah.
Need in community.
This community has a strongHaitian community.
(09:35):
As you're growing the platform,and there's gotta be this like
constant sort of learning.
Where do those insights fromthose communities for that need
for Haitian, does that come toyou from the platform side?
Is that coming from thecustomers?
Like how do you learn, right?
There's a million things thatyou don't know.
(09:55):
How do you learn those unknownunknowns?
What's your channel for, listento your customers.
So they'll tell you, we have alot of Haitian Creole speakers.
Software engineers do not liketo go into hospitals.
I do overnights in the emergencyroom.
I stay up late.
I assumed that there were gonnabe arterial blood spurts.
I asked my co-founder, I waslike, I like this shirt.
(10:16):
This is my good shirt.
Should I wear this shirt orshould I wear something else?
And he is I don't know what youthink you're getting yourself
into.
It's mostly people who like havebad head colds and nausea and
it's yeah, there's an occasionaltrauma.
They come in through theambulance.
You're not gonna be in those.
Just do the research, be in thehospitals.
We send our engineers.
Into hospitals.
We sent our engineers to,Children's Los Angeles to sit in
(10:37):
the waiting room and see whatit's like to be coughed on by
multiple children and be inthere for, an X hour wait.
And how do you keep peopleoccupied?
How do you keep them happy?
How do you prepare them to talkto the doctor and the nurse?
How do you meet them where theyare?
technical document and see howwell you recall So you have to
be literally interviewing.
Customers.
And then the last one isobviously this is the thing,
(10:59):
tech people are already good atall the analytics.
we look at heat maps, we do ABtesting, we do funnel
optimization.
We use all of those tools.
We look at rage clicks.
What did people think that theycould click on that they didn't?
Where do you see the tap.
Nothing's happening or it's nothappening fast enough.
If you're in the valley, I knowyou know how to do that, but
you're not doing number one andtwo, if you're in healthcare,
(11:21):
you know you're doing numbertwo, but you're not doing number
one and three.
You gotta do all of'em.
you're gonna sweeten me up withanswers like that for sure.
let's get out of the productmind.
Sure.
but go a little bit to originstory.
One of the things that Iabsolutely love to do on The
Tech Glow Up is talk with peoplewho have seen it and done it
right.
(11:41):
And that's had a notable successin startup innovation and
technology innovation.
Because the journey is almostnever just about the wins.
Yes.
And like the good idea is alwaysthe first and easiest part.
Correct.
and how I feel like we don'tgive enough airtime to, the hard
(12:04):
decisions, the key moments.
Really, the values that go intobeing a founder that gives you
the grit and persistence to takethat good idea until its time
hits.
Yeah.
And so I'm curious, like what'sthe engineer to entrepreneur
pipeline?
Like what, what was the thingstarted your journey and then
(12:29):
what's kept you focused andwanting to build and continue to
solve problems in such a fraughtand chaotic kind of space.
Aaron Patzer (12:39):
Alright, let's tackle this one by one.
So I did start out as anengineer.
And as an engineer I was notnecessarily the best at
communication.
The most important professionalsix minutes of my career and
probably personal life were, wewon the very first Tech crunch
event back in 2007.
We launched Tech Crunch 40, andI got on stage, and this was the
(13:02):
time when people did PowerPointpresentations primarily.
And I got on stage and I did alive demo with my own finances.
I typed my bank username andpassword on stage, pulling all
my, like everything.
I'm talking like In and OutBurger, yeah, like whatever
credit card transactionshappening.
It was real.
And I was so nervous.
I like fat fingered.
(13:22):
And I didn't get one out of thethree accounts, even though I'd
practiced it like 80 times andwe came away and we were voted
both by the judges and by thepeople top startup, and I was
like, sh*t, I was in front of2000 people.
I literally, I practiced 80times.
I was so nervous.
And now I feel, like I finally,I got that confidence as a human
(13:43):
to actually speak your truth andto be like, you know what?
I know.
This field and forget about yourfinancial outcomes.
Just like to be confident inyourself as an engineer who's
used to being introverted likethat is worth more than any
exit.
'cause it opens up everything inyour life, personal and
professional, and the way youview yourself, which is probably
(14:05):
more important than all of it
Nathan C (14:07):
because if you're only measuring yourself through the
wind and the professionals yes.
Aaron Patzer (14:12):
I was in Silicon Valley back in a time where, and
it's smaller than you think,right?
So I had this, I thought it wasa big win.
Mint was sold for$175 millionand so That's great.
And I did well.
I was the only founder.
But everybody else around me wasstill chasing that high score
and that external validation,right?
(14:32):
I played Guitar Hero withZuckerberg.
I used to go camping everysummer with Elon and there are
these people who don't know whento quit and don't realize that
it's hurting every other aspectof their life, and they have
outsized performance in certainareas.
And they're underdevelopedelsewhere.
And so my big advocacy isabsolutely go for the dollars,
(14:52):
be successful, be a roundedperson, 44, I can still do 20
pull-ups.
Pay attention to your physicalfitness as much as anything
else.
And so I wanted to get back inthis, for my, this is my
creative field, right?
My best guy friend is a directorand a writer.
My best female friend, Moni, sheis a fashion designer, My
partner Michelle, she is amusician, PIANIKA on Spotify,
(15:16):
very popular.
Look at all the shout outs.
I never do this in the podcast,but I feel very comfortable and,
This is my creative outlet, thisis what I do for fun.
This is like business andproduct design and designing the
great experiences, and there'sso many things that are broken
in.
Healthcare communication is sobroken in healthcare.
The tech is fun, but it's likeit serves this end design goal
(15:39):
of one day.
I wanna be able to guide ahundred million people through
hospital experiences, throughsurgeries, through recovering
from diseases.
Why not a billion?
This should be an experiencethat every single human has so
that you have, I'm lucky enoughto have a brother-in-law who's a
doctor, and I can ask him, whatdoes this lab result mean?
(16:01):
Why doesn't everybody have thatexperience?
And that's the glow up that Iwanna see for Vital.
That's the glow up I wanna seefor.
The industry to communicateproperly to patients.
Healthcare is misbranded.
It's really sick care.
It is not caring about yourhealth, it's not caring about
the patient.
I've sat in these C-Suitemeetings.
(16:22):
Here's how we're gonna use AIfor providers.
Here's how we're gonna use AIfor billing.
I went for one hour, a fullhour, and I raised my hand and I
said, you have not talked aboutimproving the patient or
improving health.
and it was shocking how littlethey thought about the patients,
and that is the ethos of Vitalpatient first.
(16:43):
The experience matters as muchas the medicine.
How you feel about yourexperience, how someone treated
you, how they communicated withyou.
That's what matters.
Your average emergency room is2.3 stars.
If you wait at a Mexicanrestaurant with 2.3 stars, you
would a hundred percent get foodpoisoning and you're gonna treat
(17:03):
your like blown kidney and yourcancer to a place that has 2.3.
That is something we need tofix.
Nathan C (17:10):
Oh my goodness, Aaron, that's amazing.
That analogy just killed me.
you did such a good job attalking through, my questions
about glow ups for the industryas well as for Vital.
we just have a few more moments.
because the theme is Heroes andLegends.
You called out a lot of peoplewho have been influential in
(17:30):
your life.
But I'm curious, is there amentor or a hero that's impacted
your entrepreneurial or healthtech entrepreneurial journey?
Yeah.
I'm lucky enough to have a boardmember, Dr.
Bridget Duffy.
She was the first chiefexperience officer in the world
at Cleveland Clinic.
(17:51):
She helps, She's amazing.
She was then went on to foundstartups, at Vocera, she was the
chief medical officer that wasacquired.
She's been very successful.
She sits on my board and helpsthe team, not just me, but
everybody on the team.
She has a wealth of experienceclinically and otherwise, and
her goal is to fix patient, thepatient communication across
(18:11):
healthcare Honestly, I feel somuch more energized to have her
in my corner on my side.
Just a big thank you, Bridget.
If you ever see this.
Oh my goodness.
that was so sweet and sincere.
I've, I've so appreciated.
Me too.
the pace and just presence thatyou've brought here that you're
saying, I'm gonna think throughthis one by one, Will probably
(18:33):
help me in future podcasts.
Aaron, it's been a total delightto get to talk with you on the
tech, Vital.io.
Yes, former, founder of Mint,but now founder of Vital.
Yeah.
thank you so much for joining uson the HLTH Tech Glow Up.
Amazing.
Aaron Patzer (18:49):
Thanks for listening.
Nathan C (18:50):
We're gonna do one more thing we're gonna do Oh
yes.
In 1, 2, 3.
Perfect.
Great.
Love it.
Perfect.
so 1, 2, 3.
Hello and welcome to the HLTHTech Glow Up.
I'm Nathan c and today I'mtalking with Michael Oleksiw.
Lesi.
Yeah.
Ole of Pleio.
(19:12):
Michael, thank you so much forjoining me today.
Yeah, thanks.
Thank you for having me.
Fantastic.
Can you, just to get started,can you introduce yourself and
the work that you do at Pleio?
Michael Oleksiw (19:20):
Sure.
So Michael Oleksiw, I am the,token Canadian here at the
conference.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I am pretty much a techentrepreneur, corporate
entrepreneur who has meanderedthrough building bicycles,
working in the fashion industry,and naturally progressed into
medication adherence, obviously.
(19:42):
our focus at Plao, my work overthe last decade has really been
dedicated to bettering patientexperiences and.
Making people's lives betterwith the help of technology, but
with humans at the forefront.
Nathan C (19:55):
Amazing.
Michael, you described a lot ofthe keywords that get my
attention.
I'm also curious if you're aplant, because I love bicycles
and a number of the things thatyou're talking about.
can you dive in a little bit tothe specifics about how you are
able to deliver these things atPleio?
Michael Oleksiw (20:13):
Yeah.
So we're really, again, aboutusing technology to better human
journeys.
So with the human at theforefront, we know that humans
are great at connecting.
They're great at being peoplebecause we are people, and
technology is really good atmaking things efficient.
So we bring the two worldstogether, and I've used.
a lot of the buzzwords, but Ididn't use the big buzzword,
which was AI.
I had to look at ai, we use AIto make humans better at what
(20:38):
they do, but not to replacehumans.
Alright.
So that's gives you a goodsense.
So what are we where, theclassic sense tech enabled
services.
But our core purpose is to keephealthcare human.
Nathan C (20:49):
Yeah.
Amazing.
there's been a lot of, I'veheard a lot of conversations
about AI at the show and one ofthe themes that I've really
noticed, and it seems like youmight be in this space, is.
A trust but verify version oftrust but verify, which is ai,
but human assisted.
(21:10):
is there a human checkpoint orhow does, AI better the humans?
are there checkpoints?
How.
Who gets to control truth inthese scenario?
Michael Oleksiw (21:18):
Yeah, so the interesting thing is our use of
AI is quite different than mostof what we see here, because
again, we're using it not toreplace the human, but to inform
the human.
So as we speak to patients, wewanna remind them that they're
people.
But AI allows us to listen atscale and listen more
intelligently to look at thoseemotional peaks and valleys and
determine what the best triggersare and how to better connect
(21:41):
with humans.
So our AI looks at conversationsretrospectively.
We're not letting AI loose outin the wild.
Sure.
As we look at understanding theconversations better, we always
have a human in the loop thatwill look at what the AI is
producing and say, does thismake sense?
Does this correlate with what weknow and what we believe?
(22:02):
So we're a little bit differentin that respect.
We're not using it to betransactional.
We're using it to be,informative and to drive
efficiencies.
Nathan C (22:11):
Are there, the metric of how somebody's feeling,
whether or not they're elevated,how, like that tone element that
you described Yep.
is so frequently what, getsglossed over or missed?
In healthcare interactions whenwe're like focused on our
screens or like in a task kindof mindset, like that time to
(22:32):
sit and listen and be like, whyis Mary telling me about her,
pool at the farm, back home?
how did you discover, like howis sentiment?
It feels like one of the harderparts of ai.
I'm curious, can you talk moreabout how you approach sentiment
and Yeah.
Michael Oleksiw (22:47):
it is definitely one of the more
complicated components.
it is also one of the moreestablished components where
tone and sentiment analysis isone of the more set sciences.
But we, what we do is we buildthese barrier blueprints.
We look at fear, stigma,loneliness, et cetera.
And then we use the AI to listento word phrases.
Nathan C (23:07):
Yep.
Michael Oleksiw (23:07):
Essentially, and determine.
What is, what, what is thepatient trying to tell us?
Yeah.
When they're talking about,their farm or they're expressing
something about their life thatseems extraneous to the patient
journey, they may be telling usI'm lonely.
They may be telling us I'mafraid.
So these are the types of cuesthat we look for.
And, where we're particularlystrong is picking up on those
(23:28):
cues, even just as humans,because we they're the humans go
in and form.
But our awkward giggles, ourawkward pauses.
so much is focused on thehealthcare professionals.
they're busy.
Our community pharmacy, acrossthe US is struggling.
They're under so much pressures.
So one of the things that we do,by being a good neighbor to
patients, we allow thepharmacies and the healthcare
(23:51):
professionals to work to top oflicense.
Work at the clinical level thatthey want.
They don't lack empathy.
That's what they thrive on, butthey have a job to do beyond
that.
So we remove that burden.
Nathan C (24:03):
Doctors don't have to be translators.
Doctors can think like doctors.
Patients can ask questions likepatients, and everybody gets the
info that they need.
Michael Oleksiw (24:11):
Judgment free zone.
Nathan C (24:13):
And that's so much like what personalized care is
about is no, just answer myquestion.
So I love it.
my, Michael, this is fantastic.
Thank you.
Great.
for diving in with me.
Let's look at the show a littlebit and take it way back.
High level sort of industryside.
Yep.
The Tech Glow Up, likes to talkabout, this notable RS
(24:33):
transformations.
So what are you looking to seechange and be elevated within
the healthcare industry in thenext six months or a year?
Michael Oleksiw (24:42):
Yeah.
Things are progressing sorapidly that today's glow up is
not tomorrow's glow up.
Very true.
We can't ignore ai.
particularly what we seehappening in health in the
pharma space, we have, direct topatient.
we basically probably are gonnasee a lowering of the cost of
drugs.
drugs that are wonder drugs.
Like GLP1 are going to becomecommodity drugs, although they
(25:04):
carry, a specialty price.
So the question is, how can weuse technology to support those
patients?
Who are, there'll be morepatients on drugs at a lower
cost, but yet they still requirethat support.
So are we gonna be compromisingsupport because the price came
down?
So technology, from a technologystandpoint, more users isn't
always
Nathan C (25:22):
better.
Michael Oleksiw (25:23):
Correct.
So yeah, there's definitely agreat interest around, a lot of
the AI and a lot of theefficiencies that can come.
But my particular interest is,from a tech loup perspective,
really watching that pendulumshift heavily towards digital,
heavily towards tech.
And, are we bypassing the humanin the process?
So my tech loup is reallyfocused on finding where tech
(25:44):
crosses with the human, keepsthe person behind the patient at
the center of it all.
We're focused on the person, thebehavior, not the transaction.
So that's our tech blow upspace.
Nathan C (25:55):
I love this.
it's a very unique perspectiveto be bringing, to this space.
Do you use design thinking and alot of, the principles and
approach to problem solving thatyou described, cue in a lot of
my design thinking radar?
Is that part of how you buildproducts and services?
Yeah.
(26:16):
absolutely.
Michael Oleksiw (26:16):
We are like the perfect, right brain left brain
company.
Where we are all, artists andscientists at the exact same
time.
because human behavior iscomplex medication adherence is
complex.
So it will be, a question of artand science that come into
Pleio.
And what is design?
it's using science to make artreproducible.
Nathan C (26:36):
Okay.
Oh, I love it.
I, there was like, the wordscovered out are sending a
signal.
very personalized to myinterests.
I love it.
So let's get back to, the glowups.
We have the industry level glowup Pleio as a CEO.
You've gotta have some boldgoals for the next six months or
(26:56):
a year.
what are you gonna betransforming in your own work?
Michael Oleksiw (26:59):
Yep.
so we're again, really focusedon supercharging, the human,
continuing to build the humaninteraction at scale,
understanding that it's veryeasy to bypass.
Mentioned it earlier.
Very easy to bypass the human.
So we're spending a lot of timeusing our AI to further empower.
(27:20):
those human interactions.
So it goes to something simpleas retrospectively,
understanding thoseconversations.
We spoke about the emotionalpeaks and valleys and those
human connections, but it'll getto a level of, prompting human
interactions and interleaving,human and digital understanding.
Bill that human behavioralchange, trigger it, and then
extend it and maintain it.
(27:41):
With a digital, with some levelof digital buy-in.
So we're spending a lot of timein that particular behavioral
space, really understanding, alot really around barrier
blueprint.
So we call them the underminers.
Oh, so we're looking at, yeah webuilt, they're superhero sat.
They don't sound likesuperheroes.
They sound like counter heroes.
You look at mistrust, you lookat worry.
(28:01):
You look at depression, theseare all the things that actually
get in the way of patients usingthese great technologies.
So we're using technology toenable techno humans to enable
technology.
Nathan C (28:11):
I love it, but it keeps us glowing.
It keeps us glowing.
Michael, the theme of the showat Health this year is Heroes
and Legends, and I've been usingit to talk to innovators.
about the heroes, mentors andlegends that inspired their
journey.
who's inspired you to take thisheroic effort?
Michael Oleksiw (28:30):
Yeah.
There, there are many along theway.
There are collections of heroes.
And then, one of the greatestheroes tends to be luck at
times.
So I've had, the folks that havegiven me a chance, but.
I think one of my greatestheroes, really is, a patient.
my wife, shortly after mydaughter was born, was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer.
at the time she was, 33,survival rates were at 3% at
five years.
(28:51):
18 years later, she's still withus.
at the time I was working in thefashion industry, innovating in
the fashion industry, being anasty enabler of a fa fast
fashion space, and then got tosee really how healthcare.
needs to be human.
Although I didn't know it at thetime.
I lived a patient journey.
An incredibly difficult patientjourney, and that was really my
(29:14):
glove to basically say, okay,you've always been enabling,
humans through technology,What's happening in this space?
Get back into healthcare.
So that was, it was just verypersonal.
and I think that's what makes itso real.
Nathan C (29:25):
most founders that I ask this question to have a
similarly, personal, justincredibly Close to home kind of
inspiration.
So really thank you for sharing.
Michael Oleksiw (29:39):
thanks.
And it becomes easier to shareover the years.
I would be breaking down intears if I was sharing this just
a few years ago.
Nathan C (29:45):
and also really speaks right that there are many voices
within that healthcare journey.
And while your wife was thepatient.
As a support, as family, as theperson who's not undergoing
chemo and other toxic drugs, youhave a role in this
communication chain and you're atranslator for the sentiment for
(30:09):
the whole chain that we'retalking about.
it's almost like you built toolsalso for your own role in the
journey.
Michael Oleksiw (30:16):
Yeah.
And that's where, intuitionbecame science and became
design.
Nathan C (30:20):
Yeah,
Michael Oleksiw (30:20):
We lived the journey and there's all this
knowledge and all these toolsand information that's being
thrown at you from thehealthcare community.
It's not that information that'sreally gonna help with the
journey, it's just knowing thatthere's someone that cares about
you, that facilitates thejourney and makes all of those
tools accessible.
So that's what we're reallystrive to reproduce in the work
(30:42):
that we do.
Although we didn't know it atfirst, we have several
behavioral models that havekicked in over time that explain
what we do.
We really started out doing itintuitively.
Nathan C (30:52):
That's cool.
And, usually on the glow up ifsomebody tells me, there's this
follow up about, were you alwaysable to trust that intuition?
Sometimes when you start with anidea, it feels like the only
idea How do you balance thatintuition and that curiosity
(31:14):
about maybe we don't have thewhole answer, you have to be
resolute on one hand, but youalso have to be open.
how do you balance that?
Michael Oleksiw (31:21):
and the funny thing is we only realize, our
intuition was right or wrong,often.
As an afterthought.
I like to think of it as likesubconscious intuition, where
we're actually doing somethingand not realizing it, and then
after the fact calling it in,intuition, I, and then you put a
label on it, and it's the way webacked into what we do at Pleio
right?
We were doing it, we wereconnecting with patients, and we
(31:44):
were hitting these emotionalbarriers and we realized wait a
minute.
there's a model for that.
And that, we realized.
These people seem lonely.
And then we realized, throughour work in the last year,
there's a loneliness epidemicthat's surfaced as a result of,
the paradox of, technology doomscrolling, social media.
Nathan C (32:01):
Michael, we have blown through most of the questions.
I'm offering the opportunity toshare a spicy, hot take.
Do you have one at HLTH thisyear?
Huh?
Michael Oleksiw (32:13):
I think a lot of folks were talking about,
mark Cuban's, talk.
And we were counting theF-bombs.
Same to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty spicy.
We can count F-bombs.
They were really good forapplause.
Yeah.
they drew the, they draw theapplause engagement.
I do think a little bit ofdisruptive talk, what we'd like
to see the changes to, versusjust to talk.
But, I did the fact that we weredrawing attention to this
problem because, we struggle toprovide support to patients and,
(32:36):
in our world it's always aboutcost.
Yeah, we would like to spice upthe human relative to the cost.
Nathan C (32:42):
I will take.
Yeah.
But we'd like to see theoutcomes mark as a spicy hot
ticket.
Yeah.
Michael Oleksiw (32:49):
Correct, correct.
Because it's, the money is,money's pretty powerful.
It's very easy
Nathan C (32:53):
to say from that position.
Michael Oleksiw (32:55):
And as I said early on, my concern is as we
drive down the cost of drugs.
Let's not lose track of thesupport because we can put the
treadmill into the home.
But if the motivation isn'tthere, it's a closed rack and we
don't want those drugs to sit inthe medicine cabinet.
If the doctor believes thatthey're important, the patient
needs to take them.
So we need to be sure that wemaintain that connectivity with
(33:17):
the patient, and that's wellbeyond just what we do.
Yes.
Nathan C (33:19):
Michael, it has been such a pleasure to learn about
Pleio and the really humanfocused work that you do, in
innovation and health techinnovation in general.
to have that much of a customerfocus in the work that you do is
very notable from this side.
Bravo.
Michael Oleksiw (33:39):
Great.
Thank you so much.
Look, we're surrounded withgreat people.
We talk to great people likeyourself, so that's, community
is cure, right?
So community is cure.
Nathan C (33:47):
Let's clap it out.
Michael Oleksiw (33:48):
There
Nathan C (33:49):
Great.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks.
No, it was a lot of fun.
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